Everyone behaves differently, whether it be in a passive or aggressive manner. There are a multitude of factors that influence how people behave. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies provides an exemplary illustration of how behaviors are influenced. A group of boys become stranded on a deserted island after evacuating a war. A boy named Ralph is chosen to be the chief of the group. Another boy in the group, Jack Merridew, who is very demanding and serious, is jealous over their decision. Ralph managed to build up a civilized society, although Jack wanted to overrule Ralph. Eventually, a majority of the children left Ralph’s society and joined a group of hunters led by Jack. The hunters rapidly developed into savages, they had an obsession with hunting pigs, and brutally …show more content…
Their fixations led to more destructive and careless manners as “Extreme behavior comes from a radicalized sense of belonging, a desperate attachment to a single-minded goal that causes a short-sightedness of the ‘other’” (Gleiser). The obsession with hunting overshadowed the boys’ main goal of trying to escape the deserted island. It caused many disagreements between Ralph and Jack, as their objectives clashed with each other. The tribe killed a boy due to their visceral reactions to attempting to protect themselves. While performing a chant, a boy named Simon arrived and was mistaken for an evil lurking on the island, the tribe sought to kill that evil and “at once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on to the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws” (Golding 214). Jack’s tribe developed an animalistic instinct. They mauled Simon, similar to how a predator would attack its prey. They lost all purity and devolved from humans back to wild animals. Their minds and thoughts influenced a primal instinct, rejecting all of society and embracing savage-like
him constantly and the other boys make fun of him. Jack and his followers spend
“I cannot believe there is caste system in society; I cannot believe people are judged on the basis of their prosperity.” No matter how much you’ve got to bring to the table, society will always find a way to put you down and aim for something else whether that something is worst or better than what you have to offer. In the novel Lord of the Flies, William Golding has shown this external conflict several times throughout the story with characters such as Ralph and piggy. The conflict of character vs. society is present in these characters: Ralph, the elected chief of the group of British schoolboys is constantly having to remind the group of the bigger picture; Piggy, ultimately the brain of the
William Golding, the author of the highly-acclaimed book, The Lord of the Flies took the reader into a world where underage boys live in an uncharted island with no adults no other human contact; just themselves and finding ways to survive and to get off the island. However, that is no easy task, Golding shed some ground-breaking light on how really boys will act with no authority in their lives and the term “boys will be boys” will arise. The boys were placed in a situation where they were force to act a certain way of nature and condition. In consequence, the boys’ savage and immoral behavior shown is to be blamed on the situation/environment nurtured factors.
When the boys first arrive on the island, they all had the impression that their stay would be fun without having adults supervising. However, after Jack gained power and leadership over a small group of boys who in turn become obsessed with hunting, the rest of the boys begin to unleash their savage side as well. Eventually, almost all of the schoolboys join Jack’s tribe and become wild and uncivilized, shouting, “‘Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!’” (152) while hunting. After joining Jack’s tribe, the once innocent children suddenly change their morality standards while being caught in the excitement of acting unrestrained by adults. Without realizing what they have become, they lose themselves to savagery and easily take the lives of others, losing their innocence in the
As leader of his tribe, Jack paints his face. The face paint turns Jack and the others in his tribe into “demoniac figures” which terrify Ralph, Piggy and Simon (140). With the mask on, the ego and superego hides, thus, the boys feel no moral or literal consequences for their actions. The is becomes prominent, as shown when the boys kill Piggy and Simon without shown consequences. After creating his new tribe, Jack's knife disappears, and he “carrie[s] death in his hands” instead of the bloody knife (196). Jack is so violent that he does not need a knife, but uses his body and voice as a weapon. Jack leads the boys in the chant that kills Simon and inspires the hatred that kills Piggy. Jack may not kill these two boys, but he is the instigator and inspired the horrible actions made by his tribe. Jack and his hunters succumb to want and instant pleasure when they kill Piggy and Simon, as they are not thinking about the enormity of killing a human being, but about the instant pleasure of quenching their bloodlust. Finally, Jack “set[s] the island on fire” without thinking about how the boys will eat with all the plants and animals burnt (197). This shows the pleasure principle because, in the moment, Jack wanted to kill Ralph, thus he set the Island on fire. If the ego had been present, then Jack may have considered the possible repercussions of lighting the island on fire and hunted Ralph a different way. Had the superego been present, Jack most likely would have left Ralph alone to live on his own, or accepted him into his own tribe. As Jacks id becomes more prominent, Jack ceases to think about the repercussions of his actions and continues to focus on his personal pleasure, rather than the benefit of the group or
“A river is easier to channel than to stop” (Sanderson). This quote from the book Mistborn: Shadows of Self demonstrates the idea of mob mentality. The Psychology of the Mob Mentality is a social psychology that involves people participating in certain behaviors influenced by their peers. When people participate in mob- like behaviors, it is often difficult to stop those actions depending on the situation. Identity and acceptability are two main causes of mob mentality in both Lord of the Flies and Mean Girls.
True Human Nature Exposed in Lord of the Flies The island in Lord of the Flies represents "a microcosm of human society." Stranded on an island where no definite authority is to be obeyed, the boys quickly forget the social standards that their parents have impressed on them. Eventually, the wildness of their ids cannot be suppressed. They lose their pride as "British boys" and choose their leaders, their social groups, and their lifestyles with their basic instincts rather than with practicality. Fear and superstition rule the island instead of the laws of science.
In the beginning of the story, we see evidence of both civilization and savage behavior. Although the boys came from a very civilized place, where they had their school uniform and all. They still ended up being savage. even in the end they are Ralph and Piggy met after escaping their plane. Piggy finds a shell and he tells Ralph how his friend “kind of spat” (Golding 16) so Ralph did the same. Other boys came and they joined an assembly and already Jack started giving orders saying, “Choir! Stand still!” (Golding 20) They start to elect a chief Jack asks “who wants Jack for chief” (Golding 23) being obedient the entire choir holds up their hand, but Ralph still becomes chief. There's no one else on the island except them. Jack decided to take
the story of a group of boys stranded on a deserted island to examine a multitude of
A Human disposition toward savagery causes total destruction in the society. The central concern of Lord of the Flies is the conflict between two competing impulses that exist within all human beings: the instinct to live by rules, act peacefully, follow moral commands, and value the good of the group against the instinct to gratify one¡¯s immediate desires, act violently to obtain supremacy over others, and enforce one¡¯s will (Phillips). This second trait is quite blatantly shown through Jack and his hunters. In the beginning of the novel, even Jack is not quite savage yet.
Jack and the hunters show that mankind are inheritantly evil, if left alone to take care of themselves, fear will turn tem into the savage roots of the ancestors. This is shown near the end of the novel with the killing of piggy and the hunting of Ralph. Though at first Jack felt guilty for killing Simon, because he was still civilised, however as time goes on it turns into a thirst for blood, to kill anything that stands in his way to become the leader of the island.
During World War II, the United States killed 90,000 to 166,000 people in Hiroshima with an atomic bomb. The bombing of Hiroshima demonstrated the uncivilized behaviors of humankind: hunger for power, misuse of technology, and subconscious reactions to conflicts. Lord of the Flies, an allegorical novel by William Golding, illustrates a horrific tale of boys who are stranded on an island and lose their ability to make civil decisions. Throughout the book, Ralph and Jack fight for power, Piggy’s spectacles are constantly taken to create fire, and several of the boys become “savage” and act upon their subconscious minds. From a sociological perspective, Golding’s novel portrays man’s voracity for power, abuse of technology to the point of destruction, and his venture to inner darkness.
of Louis XIV was that he thought human nature would always be the same. The
Look at the basis of civilization, what is the one terminal thing every society possesses? Malliciousness, since the beginning of time there has been one constant attribute of all humans, the ability to be destructive. Human beings are innately evil, the environment they are put in determines if the act on the evil inside of them. In the novel Lord of The Flies the atrocious behavior of the boys on the island exemplifies the concept of humans and heinous behavior. The stanford prison experiment conducted in August of 1971, recognizes the possessiveness of power in the absence of society, identifying the underlying autogenous behavior of humans. Religion is domesticated in both of these instances which dictates why there is as an absence of classic integrity. Ethology is displayed abundantly within the lord of the flies novel and the society it constitutes. Societies are created by
William Golding wrote of his novel "Lord of the Flies" that the theme was an attempt to explore how the defects society are based largely on human nature rather than the structure of civilization. Golding used "Lord of the Flies" to allegorically explain that the architecture of a society depends on the morality of the individual rather than a social or political construction, regardless of its inherent merit or esteem.